ALEX.
I was reaching for a navy blazer when I felt it, that unmistakable prickle at the back of my neck. The sensation of being watched. And then his voice followed, piercing through the calm air of the store.
“Shopping for your man?”
I straightened slowly, my fingers still grazing the fabric, and turned to him. Derek.
There he was, staring at me with an unreadable expression in his eyes. For a second, my brain refused to cooperate. It felt like seeing a ghost in broad daylight, too real to be a memory, too wrong to exist in front of me like that. My breath caught painfully in my throat.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, my voice sharper than I intended.
He smiled, that same familiar curve of his lips that used to disarm me and now only made my stomach churn.
“Still blunt,” he sai
